A seemingly lacklustre attempt by the provincial Education Department to resolve a land dispute is an insult to rural school pupils and enforces an idea that they are the “stepchildren” of the schooling system.
This is the view of Western Cape High Court Judge Elizabeth Baartman, who yesterday heard arguments regarding the future of 202 pupils at Grootkraal Ucc Primary School in Oudtshoorn.
The school is situated in an old church built in the 1800s to serve coloured farmworkers.
The owners back then built the church for the workers and in 1931 it opened its doors to education as well.
In 2010, private buyers bought the farm and instituted eviction proceedings, and during May 2011 the school governing body was advised that the new owners did not want to extend the lease.
Advocate Mushahida Adhikri for the school argued that the department had failed to engage with the governing body, and as a result it had to approach the high court for urgent relief that year.
The court soon interdicted the MEC and head of department from taking steps to close the school without consultation from residents.
But since then the MEC has not presented any plans on the future of the pupils, Adhikri argued.
The only proposal made was to place the children 17km away, but many of them do not have transport.
Judge Baartman said it was an absolute insult to the children that seven years later no plans had been presented.
“This is disrespectful to the children, it's shocking the MEC won’t even consider expropriation because there is state land available 17km away, but there is no plan provided to show where the children will stay. I read the affidavit and I want to think this is truly not happening.”
Advocate Ewald de Villers-Jansen said the land 17km away was the best alternative the department could provide at the time and denied the MEC had not paid enough attention to the case.
Advocate Anna-Marie de Vos questioned the reasoning behind the attempted eviction and cited racism as a reason.
“If this was an NG Kerk and white people, would the owner try this? These are third and fourth generation farmworkers who use the facility, and we have to look at it in the South African land context,” De Vos said.
In the past colonisers could kick people of colour off farms even though they had occupied it for years and get away with it, De Vos said.
But that needed to change, she argued. “In the Klein Karoo there are millions of hectares of land, but no farmworker owns any.”
The case continues today.